Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
TI NavLink 6.0Texas Instruments’s (TI’s) announcement of its NaviLink 6.0 (NL5500) with integrated GPS, Bluetooth, and FM may presage the company’s expanded focus for application markets beyond cell phone handsets.
By Glen Gibbons
The Letter LoggerThe new GPS Letter Logger (GLL-1000) by TrackingTheWorld uses a Texas Instruments microprocessor and a u-blox ANTARIS 4 GPS module to help the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) find out where and how long a piece of mail spends in one place.
By Glen Gibbons
NXP Semiconductors launched its first assisted-GPS (A-GPS) chip, the GNS7560, targeting mobile phones and standalone personal navigation devices (PNDs) with the product’s package size of less than nine square millimeters.
By Glen Gibbons
CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio) and Motorola have announced launch of an industry group that seeks to promote the integration of GPS and other location technologies to create more robust, continuous positioning capabilities by mobile device users.
By Glen Gibbons
Swindon, UK–based start-up company Air Semiconductor is aiming its first OEM GPS product at what it hopes is a sweet spot in the market: geotagging digital camera photos.
And it may be pointing in the right direction, according to a new IMS Research report that predicts a 200 percent cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) for GNSS-aided digital cameras over the next five years.
By Glen Gibbons
IT321Fastrax Ltd. has launched two new GPS OEM receivers, including one with an integrated chip antenna, aimed at designers of mass-market automotive and portable devices.
The Fastrax UC322 incorporates an on-board chip antenna (five millimeters thick) designed to reduce the size from that of typical patch antennas and large separate ground planes, according to the company. Instead, the end device’s printed circuit board functions as part of the antenna.
By Glen Gibbons
The U.S. Air Force has exercised new options on contracts with three companies for development of GPS Modernized User Equipment (MUE) for future military applications.
Under the new awards, Raytheon will receive $65 million; Rockwell Collins, $50.7 million; and L-3/Interstate Electronics Corporation, $36 million. All options were awarded on or about October 19.
By Glen Gibbons
Nokia’s new A-GPS-assisted N82 phoneThwarted in its latter-day attempt to buy digital mapmaker Tele Atlas out from under TomTom, GPS manufacturer Garmin International has signed an long-term deal with rival map provider Navteq.
Under the agreement announced today (November 16) Garmin will extend its current six-year agreement with Chicago, Illinois–based NAVTEQ to access to map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019.
By Glen Gibbons
Three new market studies — from Berg Insight, ABI Research, and Markets and Research — focus on GPS chipsets and the high-volume consumer device markets that drive them, all predicting continued rapid growth.
By Glen Gibbons
STMicroelectronics has introduced Cartesio, its new automotive-grade application processor with embedded GPS for navigation and telematics. The processor couples with ST’s GPS RF chip (STA5620) to provide a core receiver unit.
Cartesio (STA2062) integrates a 32-bit ARM CPU core with a high-sensitivity 32-channel GPS subsystem and a large set of connectivity peripherals, including CAN, USB, UARTs, and SPI. It also provides on-chip high-speed RAM and real-time clock functionality, according to the company.
By Glen Gibbons
Ten-year-old u-blox AG has launched its initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which will begin trading October 26 on the Swiss Exchange. Price range for the offered shares is between 42 and 54 Swiss francs (CHF: US$35.53 and $45.68).
By Glen Gibbons
Swedish technology group Hexagon AB, which acquired Leica Geosystems in 2005, launched its tender offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding common shares of NovAtel Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, Canada–based developer and manufacturer of OEM GNSS and related products, at a price per share of US$50 cash.
By Glen Gibbons
The stunning sequence of multi-billion-dollar buyout offers for the two leading navigable map data providers TeleAtlas and NAVTEQ — by TomTom and Nokia, respectively — raises issues not only of access to critical intellectual property (IP) and a long-delayed explosion of location-based services (LBS) but may also determine the outcome of the long-debated platform of choice for GNSS-enriched consumer applications.
By Glen Gibbons
